“Long Distance Runaround” by Yes

Jon Anderson wrote "Long Distance Runaround" for Fragile, the 1971 Yes album, and the lineup that plays it is a murderers' row: Anderson singing, Steve Howe on guitar, Chris Squire on bass, Rick Wakeman on keyboards and Bill Bruford on drums, with Eddy Offord producing alongside the band and engineering.

Anderson reportedly drew the lyric from memories of the hypocrisy and one-upmanship he ran into at church as a boy in the north of England, and the song carries a longing for the real thing beneath its bright, intricate surface. Atlantic tucked it on the flip of "Roundabout", but album-rock radio flipped it right over and made it a hit on its own terms. On Fragile it slides straight into "The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)".

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.